GE Link Review

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Pros

Pro

Easy lighting management

Once you get the Wink App working, controls for the bulbs are simple. Whether you are modifying one bulb at a time, or grouping them to adjust many all at once, the controls are simple and work fairly well. Automating bulbs is just as easy - from basic scheduling (turn on in the morning, off when you go to bed for example) to recognizing when your phone is near and turn on by themselves.

If you want to go deeper, you can use the Robots feature, which allows you to craft your own automation recipe and dip into external triggers.

Pro

Great color range

These bulbs can manage to display 90% of the color index - more than any current RGB LED bulb. It scores very well in all colors, expect pure red (about 60%) and pure blue (about 74%). Different shades of these colors all perform well.

Pro

Compatible with many products

The GE Link is part of Wink's smart home platform standard, and are compatible with other products that utilize Wink (Honeywell, Dropcam, Philips Hue and more).

Cons

Con

Buggy software

Between installing, registering, and connecting, the setup process is very slow and buggy. Even once connected, changing the colors or settings takes longer and appears more choppy than competing bulbs.

Updates can fail to install properly multiple times in a row (even with restarting your phone and unscrewing the bulbs).

Con

Hub required

To access any smart features, you will require a hub. There are different hubs available, with more to come. Currently there is the Link Hub ($30) which will handle lighting, or the Wink Hub ($50) will be able to work the lights as well as other smart home systems. There's also the coming-soon Wink Relay ($300) which will have a touchscreen and act as a wall mounted smart hub.

Con

Inefficient compared to other RGB bulbs

The GE Link requires 12 watts to produce 800 lumens - the TCP LEDs and Belkin WeMo provide the same lumens at 11 watts and 9.5 watts, respectively, and the Philips Hue provides 750 lumens using only 9 watts.

The GE Link is one of the most inefficient RGB LEDs available, however it is still many times more efficient than incandescent bulbs.

Con

Limited dimming

While other Smart LED bulbs can dim right down to 0.5% of their total brightness, the GE Link will only go down to 10.2% brightness before it turns off. While this is still fairly dim, it would be nice to have an even larger range to make transitioning to bedtime more effective.

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